The City of Everett (City) voted on November 5, 2024, to pass initiative 24-03, granting the Snohomish River Watershed (Watershed) enforceable legal rights within the City’s limits. The law creates a right for the Watershed to “exist, regenerate, and flourish” and prohibits anyone from impacting that right. It also states that the Watershed has the “right to be free from activities or projects which violate these rights.”

Any resident of the Watershed, including people, city agencies, and organizations can enforce violations. The penalty for such a violation are fines paid to the City to be exclusively used to restore the River to its condition prior to the violation. Interestingly, the law states that where a violation is shown to be probable, it is not a defense to demonstrate a lack of “full scientific certainty.”

The City of Everett is not the first in the United States to pass such a law, known as a “right of nature” law. For example, a county in Florida and a city in Ohio both passed local laws recognizing legal rights for water features in their respective areas. However, neither law survived. In Florida, a state court struck down the law after it found that the local law was preempted by a Florida State law that specifically prohibited local laws granting legal rights to parts of nature like bodies of water. In Ohio, a federal court found the law to be unconstitutionally vague and struck it down. Other such “rights of nature” laws have faced similar fates.

Parties who may challenge the law include anyone who may have had any impact on the portion of the Watershed within City limits. This would also include parties who have operated outside of City limits, but whose actions arguably could have impacted the applicable portion of River. The language of the law applies to a broad set of activities, and accordingly, a broad set of people and organizations have an interest in challenging the law. However, these challenges might not occur until a plaintiff has used the law to sue one of these interested parties. Another option is that a party or group of interested parties will challenge the law before it is used, seeking to preempt use of the law entirely.

Given the relative novelty of these types of laws, they remain a developing area and one that should be monitored. The “right of nature” movement is active not just in the City but in jurisdictions across the country, and other similar laws may gain traction.